Then, he stands and begins to aimlessly walk around the edge of the concrete base, pacing around once and then twice. With each step, the purpose in his life, that he once believed he had, diminishes in meaning.
After the third time, he stops. Submitting to the powerlessness he feels over the circumstances that his unpardonable mistake has created, he asks, “Why am I even here? Why did I think I could do this? And how in the world did I even get here?”
He then thinks about the five years he purposefully filled with days of endless drinking, not wanting to find a job, and not wanting to befriend anyone.
“Dancy and Paige,” he whispers. “What should I have done?” He looks far into the horizon, “I couldn’t even decide the life I wanted. Now Paige and Isaac are gone. And Dancy. Where is she?” He closes his eyes and tries to sense her presence in the world, but he cannot find her. However, maybe it’s because he doesn’t want to find her, or maybe it’s because it’s easier to give up. Then, he says in a defeated tone, “Maybe she’s no longer here.”
The wind begins to pick up and run over the surface of the bay.
He remembers Gul’s cryptic words when they met for the first time, as Gul tried to explain why events in his life were unfolding, “You are becoming who you are.”
Another breeze comes in, and he turns away from it.
Dejected, he concludes, “I don’t think that’s gonna happen anymore. And I’m not gonna become whatever I’m supposed to become.”
After a long moment, he tilts his head up and gazes into the sky. “Maybe what I’m supposed to be…” he sighs, “…maybe I’m really not meant to be much of anything.”
He says it in a tone of resignation, and the fight in his soul is diminished to irrelevance.
His will is now broken.
With his personality sinking back to the withdrawn and grieving man he was several weeks ago, he says, “I’ve done enough damage.” Then, directing his eyes higher up to the heavens, he concludes, “This is as far as I go.”
Emptied of spirit, he feels like a shadow of himself.
Looking back down, and then over the ocean, he sees the sky is clear and bright blue. Then, a thought slowly comes. Puzzled but in a way disinterested, he asks in a whisper, “Blue sky?”
* * * * * * *
“You have no beginning.”
The words were clear and unambiguous.
Inside the Alleyway, the goateed man jerked his head around to see the one who had said it, but the man had suddenly disappeared. He turned back around to look at the note. It had familiar block lettering, saying, “Follow Sik, Samuel Ian Kessian, the bad man.”
Just then, Sik finished his game of 9-ball. He had won. The two men laughed and gave each other a hardy high-five. The losing man handed Sik a set of keys.
Sik walked toward the door and out of the Alleyway.
The goateed man followed.
Outside, across the street from the Alleyway, there were two fuel trucks parked in tandem and facing north on Kenmore Street. Their tubular polished aluminum tanks reflected the dark, wooden front facade and neon sign of the Alleyway.
Sik jumped in the driver’s seat of the first truck, closed the door, and started the engine. He turned the steering wheel and looked over his shoulder. As he maneuvered the truck onto Kenmore, their eyes locked. Sik gave him a sinister smile and a wink.
As the truck passed, the goateed man felt uneasy. He didn’t know what the hooded man and Sik had planned, and he began to blame himself for not doing anything to prepare. Nonetheless, he had been in a quandary: he didn’t know what to prepare for.
Watching the truck, he sensed the tank was filled with gas, and he could smell some of the octane fuel. He thought it would be much easier to follow Sik if he put himself on top of the tank, on the tank’s walkway. But the sun was still out and people could readily see him; he would certainly attract too much attention. So, he looked down the street. At about every two blocks, there was a multi-story building. From their rooftops, he concluded, he could take himself from one to another, and would be able to follow Sik’s movements.
“That’s the best I can do,” he thought, “Just watch and keep an eye out for now.” He disappeared and reappeared on the first rooftop, a short distance ahead. Crouching down to hide himself, he positioned himself at a corner’s edge. Shortly, Sik’s fuel-laden truck slowly accelerated, as it lumbered by.
The goateed man vanished and reappeared on a second rooftop further north. He thought, “If they plan to blow up that truck, I can just turn the fuel in to water. It’s too easy. But that can’t be all I need to do - it can’t be that easy.” Then, he turned the explosive fuel, within the truck’s tank, into benign water.
Two blocks later, Sik stopped the truck, at a stoplight, just before the overpass of the 101 Freeway. When the light turned green, Sik patiently accelerated the truck, shifting its gears until he reached the speed of traffic.
The truck disappeared under the 101 overpass, crossing under the four southbound lanes, and then under the four northbound lanes.
On top of the next roof, the goateed man glanced north through the street, to see where he could go next and what he could be looking out for. A block away was a small strip mall. About two blocks further on the right side of Kenmore Street was a restaurant, and next door to it was a construction site of a new building, with a large sign at its very top that announced its name: Lejirri.
A feeling of tension began to creep into the goateed man. The whole area was too peaceful, too calm, and there just wasn’t anything that stood out. Taking a moment, he investigated a little bit more. Focusing on the Lejirri building, he saw that it was mostly unfinished, and he gauged that it was about ten stories high. Concrete walls covered the first six stories, but the remaining floors above that were just naked solid steel framing and girders. The ground around the building was dirt, and at its perimeter was chain-linked fencing. The construction workers had already left the site and locked the gate.
Focusing away, he looked for Sik’s truck once again.
Suddenly, an enormous explosion from the south startled him. It made his whole body tremble, and it shook the top of the building, on which he crouched.
“No way,” he gasped in fear, as he turned and saw a few blocks away that the explosion had demolished all four southbound lanes of the 101 Freeway. Immediately, he transported himself between parked cars on Kenmore Street, just a block up from the 101. He saw that the northbound lanes were still intact, but cars there were beginning to slow down.
Quickly, glancing up Kenmore again to find Sik, he spotted the shining, cylindrical, aluminum back end, and Sik was still casually on the move.
Turning again to examine the destruction of the 101 Freeway, he was taken aback, as he saw the obliterated southbound lanes. All had crashed down and crushed everything beneath them on Kenmore. Twisted metal rebar and broken concrete hung off the ends of the remaining freeway. Below it, huge chunks of gray concrete blocks and slabs of asphalt covered the street, as thick gray dust plumed above.
Underneath all the debris on Kenmore, the goateed man noticed something cylindrical and large, and part of its shiny surface reflected the afternoon sun. Puzzled, he focused on it. Then, he became troubled by what he sensed: it was the second fuel truck. He recognized its unconscious driver and said, “This guy is the same one who lost the 9-ball game to Sik in the Alleyway.”
At that moment, the sound of frantically screeching tires pierced his ears. Cars on the southbound 101 collided into each other, in their attempt to avoid plunging down the gaping chasm.
With a tremendous bang and crunch of metal, an SUV lunged into the gap. The horrified driver locked his elbows and clenched the steering wheel. A moment later, the front of the vehicle struck, dead-on, the side of the fuel truck’s aluminum tank, exploding it.
The goateed man’s heart jumped. Acting as fast as he could, he concentrated on the truck driver. Within a split second, he transferred the man next to h
im. As soon as the man appeared, he immediately looked back to save the man within the SUV.
But it was too late. The vehicle was already completely consumed by a tremendous, intense blaze.
The heat from the blast melted the asphalt beneath the truck. People ran away from their cars as flames gushed through the gap of the freeway, like fire bursting from a volcano, curling up and over the remaining freeway lanes. The vehicles on the 101 were tossed into the air, like toy cars. Many witnessed the concrete freeway suspension columns, of the northbound lanes, crack and buckle; and the lanes swayed and fractured, but miraculously they remained standing.
With the searing heat and blinding light reaching him, the goateed man flinched and turned away, lifting his right arm to cover his face. The high-pressured, heated air rushed past him, almost pushing his body backward. He heard debris of metal slivers, concrete, and asphalt wiz by his ears.
Suddenly, he felt a sting and a sharp pain, in his raised forearm. When the flames and heat receded, he quickly dropped his arm and examined the area. Just below his elbow, the skin had been pierced. Some kind of material was lodged within the muscles of his forearm. It was spherical, about the size of a dime.
“Ouch! What the heck is that?!” he said perplexed and irritated by the sting. He tried to sense what it was, in order to remove it from his body, but the material continuously changed its composition. In quick succession, it transitioned and shifted, becoming one compound, and then another, changing its shape and consistency. He could see his skin stretch and contract directly above it.
Even though he tried concentrating more intently, there was no way he could lock onto it. He was completely caught off guard by the object in his arm, and now he had no way of removing it.
With the pain in his forearm subsiding to a dull ache, he remembered Sik. Fearful of what havoc could come next, he took his attention away from his arm and quickly turned up north.
Sik’s eyes now glared in pure determination. His fuel truck was no longer lumbering. He drove with unabated acceleration, increasing his speed to reach over sixty miles an hour on the city street. Without losing momentum, Sik jerked the wheel to the right and turned off of the road, to go through a parking lot. He directed the fuel truck diagonally toward the building under construction, the Lejirri building.
Tightly gripping the steering wheel, Sik clenched his teeth. The muscles at the sides of his jaw flexed rigid. With the sound of snapping metal chains and crunching steel, he made the truck break through the chain-linked fencing that surrounded the site.
Spewing and kicking up plumes of dirt and dust, the truck’s massive wheels sped their way directly to the bare concrete building.
At the destroyed 101 Freeway, the goateed man quickly decided to leave the unconscious driver, of the second fuel truck, and move himself a half block down from Sik’s position. Once there, he crouched low in between two parked cars, on the pavement. With no one noticing him, he stood and moved onto the sidewalk.
What’s Sik doing? he thought puzzled and feeling tension build within. He concentrated on Sik’s truck and verified that the content inside the tubular aluminum tank was still water. He’s crazy. He’s just gonna kill himself if he slams into the building.
He watched, as the truck raced through the construction site and sped into an opening, at the center of the building, where the lobby was being constructed. There, the truck disappeared from view, but he could still hear the powerful, high-revving engine.
Suddenly, there was the sound of crashing glass, and then a brief moment later, an explosion blasted and thundered in the air.
The deafening sound shocked the goateed man’s ears. As flames consumed the back of the Lejirri building, he saw them blaze quickly toward the front, and then engulf the first floor. Concrete, burning wood, and metal debris flung out in a wide circumference, around the building. Some of the debris reached the restaurant next door, crashing through the restaurant walls and wooden roof, and setting the roof ablaze.
The goateed man stood in amazement. He had been completely unprepared for these events. One thing after another had caught him by surprise and left him stunned.
As flying debris reached him, he suddenly sensed a small object rapidly making its way directly to him. It was one more thing for which he had not been prepared. However, a new ability given to him was about to manifest.
With his thoughts racing and his heart pounding, he rapidly shifted his eyes and scanned the space in front of him. Concentrating, he spotted a small, glimmering sphere, like a translucent pearl, about the size of a dime, speeding towards his body. It was identical to the one already lodged inside his forearm.
When it was about three cars in front of him, his eyes locked onto it.
Wanting to divert the sphere and prevent it from striking him, he found himself intensifying his focus and concentration on the object.
Then, suddenly, everything seemed to slow almost to a stop. The movement of the sphere and the environment around him - the cars, the people, the wind, and the fires - began to slow down. More accurately, time slowed down. His mind, his will, caused the phenomenon.
As he focused more keenly, the small sphere reduced its speed, further and further, until it looked as if it were suspended in air, moving only centimeter by centimeter closer.
He was able to witness the passing of microseconds of time being stretched out into many seconds. Behind the pearl-like sphere, images of the fires from the explosion seemed frozen in their heated dance. Debris flung into the air suspended in their flight. Cars in the street halted over the black asphalt. People everywhere, who were witnessing the fiery catastrophe, were stopped in still motion, with their eyes and faces locked in expressions of shock and dismay.
Awe and wonder now mingled with his fear and excitement, as he realized what was happening: the pace of the world around him was somehow under his control.
In amazement, he thought, “Whoa, this can’t be happening. I think time is slowing down.”
Then, he realized how he was causing it. He could feel energy from his body emanate in rhythmically pulsating shock waves that projected out into the surroundings, like rapidly expanding bubbles of energy, with him at their center. It tingled his skin as it radiated out. And he could slow time, even more, by making the bubbles of energy pulsate from him even faster.
But this control of time came at a cost, and he had to exert substantial effort, in order to make it happen.
With the sphere now only a few steps away, he leaned forward to examine it. It was beautiful: perfect and shining, in soft yet bright white light.
But he wanted to know where the object came from. Maybe he could rewind the events that were overtaking him and start anew. Further exerting himself, he tried to reverse time; as he said, in hope and in a bit of exasperation, “I need a do-over about now.” The sphere slowed substantially and seemed to stop in midair. As his mind focused with greater intensity, the muscles in his neck and face flexed and tightened.
The sphere remained suspended, but did not reverse its path.
Increasing his concentration even more, he felt waves of energy pulsate faster and faster, from his body, until it began to feel as though the sensation of waves disappeared, and just a steady stream of energy flung out from him.
His head began to rapidly quiver.
But nothing more happened. Time did not reverse, and the shining object’s motion could not be regressed.
Feeling great weakness begin to overcome him, he said in straining words, “No! It’s not working.” Finally, he decided to gradually ease his focus and concentration. As he released a heavy sigh, the tension in his body began to dissipate, and the waves of energy emitting from him slowed.
The sphere began to make its way to him once again, and the more he allowed time to naturally progress, the faster the sphere moved. Realizing that it would soon reach him, he moved to the side, out of the sphere’s path.
But the object seemed to target him and follow his
movement. In its swift flight, it immediately changed its trajectory and curved a path in the air.
Attempting to escape from it, he leapt away.
But the sphere flew to him, and like a speeding bullet, it struck him, tearing through his jeans and his flesh, and imbedding itself within his left thigh.
As he tumbled onto the ground, he felt its sting, and clutched at the throbbing pain in his leg.
Similar to the first sphere in his forearm, this second one immediately began to change its physical nature. It hid in his flesh, moving and stretching his muscles and skin.
Still grasping his leg, he looked out around him. The raging fires on the building and the progressing flames on the roof of the restaurant, reflected their colors and frenzied movement from his eyes. He could hear the sound of people fleeing, with anguish in their panicked voices.
Overwhelmed by the circumstances, he felt trapped in his own mind. He wanted to help, but he didn’t know where to start. Just pick something and fix it! he yelled at himself, within his thoughts.
Finally, dismissing his wounds, he stood himself up with resolve.
The fire, on the roof of the restaurant, now consumed a large section of the rooftop. He saw people run out of it, fearfully ducking their heads, and coughing as they escaped. With a crowd encircling the scene of the burning building and restaurant, he heard a voice shout, “It’s starting to fall!”
The explosion, and its consuming blaze, had compromised the main support structures of the Lejirri building, and it began to buckle and topple, in the direction of the restaurant.
His shock over the devastation had passed, and now he needed to act. As he looked up at the top of the ten-story Lejirri building, he gauged, “If the top four floors crash down, they would reach and crush the restaurant next to it.”
He witnessed the building begin to teeter down, gaining speed with each passing moment. Suddenly, the first and second floors collapsed, forcing the air within them to rush out in a bellowing exhale. Flames and smoke spewed out in all directions.
Quickly, he realized that this would be the moment to act. “Do it now!” he hurriedly urged himself, as he saw the opportunity to prevent further disaster, “Make it so people won’t know what happened.”
RB 01 Through Flesh & Bone Page 29